Hey Matt,
Absolutely right, I really want to see what is possible. There is one gym I know of that has tried this- the Green Microgym- they say they can offset about 85% of their electricity use! Imagine if all fitness centers did that...
-Andy

That's a great idea- super simple and small footprint. We haven't done coffee grinding yet (though lots of grinding grain, etc). We are developing a smaller lever driven unit that would be well suited to kitchen tasks (grinding, blending, food processor, etc)- you are correct that doing things with leg power is much easier than hand power (4-8x) and for small tasks you don't need to produce the large power that our machines are designed to generate.

I have a small exercise board that rocks back and forth on a half circle when you step on it. I want to get the porlex coffee grinder and hook it up so that it grinds coffee with the energy from this board so it is much faster, efficient and balanced.

My idea to you then is to make this into a smaller compact unit that is affordable. Instead of a whole bike just a small stepping machine to do small tasks such as grind coffee with Japanese coffee grinders.

The Porlex coffee grinder is better and cheaper then much more expensive coffee grinders yet not considered because of the effort needed to grind the coffee.